What is an Innovation Ecosystem?

By Deborah J. Jackson
National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA

The analogy with biological ecosystems

One expects there to be a conceptual analogy between an innovation ecosystem and the biological
ecosystems observed in nature. The biological ecosystem is a system that includes all living organisms
(biotic factors) in an area as well as its physical environments (abiotic factors) functioning together as a
unit. It is characterized by one or more equilibrium states, where a relatively stable set of conditions
exist to maintain a population or nutrient exchange at desirable levels. The ecosystem has certain
functional characteristics that specifically regulate change or maintain the stability of a desired
equilibrium state.
In the biological system , the equilibrium state is described by modeling the energy dynamics of the
ecosystem operations?1 In this context, the energy is simply the way the predator-prey relationship
and the plants transfer energy; calories are burned consuming prey, thereby transferring the energy of
the prey to the predator and as plants die and decompose, their energy is transferred to the soil where
it is taken up again by other plants. Because the energy dynamics are a complex function, an ecosystem
can only be considered as a whole, not piecemeal, as every part of the ecosystem has a functional effect
on another.

In summary, a biological ecosystem is a complex set of relationships among the living resources,
habitats, and residents of an area, whose functional goal is to maintains an equilibrium sustaining state.
1

http://www.sustainablescale.org/ConceptualFramework/UnderstandingScale/BasicConcepts/EcosystemFunctionsS
ervices.aspx

In contrast, an innovation ecosystem models the economic rather than the energy dynamics of the
complex relationships that are formed between actors or entities whose functional goal is to enable
technology development and innovation. In this context, the actors would include the material resources
(funds, equipment, facilities, etc.) and the human capital (students, faculty, staff, industry researchers,
industry representatives, etc.) that make up the institutional entities participating in the ecosystem (e.g. the
universities, colleges of engineering, business schools, business firms, venture capitalists (VC), industryuniversity research institutes, federal or industrial supported Centers of Excellence, and state and/or local
economic development and business assistance organizations, funding agencies, policy makers, etc.). The
innovation ecosystem comprises two distinct, but largely separated economies, the knowledge economy,
which is driven by fundamental research, and the commercial economy, which is driven by the
marketplace. Of necessity, however, the two economies are weakly coupled because the resources
invested in the knowledge economy are derived from the commercial sector; this includes government
research and development (R&D) investments which are ultimately derived from tax revenues.
Why do we care about developing the innovation ecosystem?
The two ways to increase economic output within an economy are to (i) increase the number of inputs in
the productive process, or (ii) think of new ways to get more output from the same number of inputs. The
latter is the essence of what is broadly meant by innovation, which is defined as the introduction of new
or significantly improved products (goods or services), processes, organizational methods, and marketing
methods in internal business practices or the marketplace. Innovation is believed to be the fundamental
source of significant wealth generation within an economy. This belief is foundation of the current
administrations strategy for the economic recovery

efforts to nourish the nations innovation ecosystem3.

and undergirds the National Science Foundations

In particular, because high-tech industries offer

higher growth potential, the best way to spur job creation and economic growth is by facilitating more

Executive Office of the President (2009). A strategy for American Innovation: Driving towards Sustainable Growth
and Quality Jobs http://whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/SEPT_20_Innovation Whitepaper FINAL.pdf.
3
The Role of the National Science Foundation in the Innovation Ecosystem;
http://www.nsf.gov/eng/iip/innovation.pdf

efficient translation of innovations from the knowledge economy into the commercial sector. Given
todays economic down turn, with its high unemployment rates and low tax revenues, federal, state, and
local governments entities are now actively seeking new ways to grow their economies by creating jobs.
The higher growth rate for high-tech industries, in particular, offers a strong incentive for government
entities to actively develop and nurture innovation ecosystems that leverage the technology research of
university faculty.

An important feature of an innovation ecosystem is that the resources available to the knowledge
economy are coupled to the resources generated by the commercial economy, usually as some
fraction of the profits in the commercial economy. Another feature is that the ecosystem is
usually strategically developed around a specific technology. Two high profile examples of focused
ecosystems are the Department of Energys Innovation Ecosystem Development Initiative4 which is
focused on speeding up the adoption of energy innovations and the European Innovation Initiatives
Digital Ecosystem technologies5. These national level strategic initiatives are just two examples; clearly
innovation ecosystems can be structured around almost any subject matter. The Engineering Research
Centers (ERC) program6 at the National Science Foundation is an example of smaller scale innovation
ecosystems developed to push selected technology niches which are centered around transformative
engineering systems. This program, originated more than 25 years ago within the NSFs Engineering
Directorate, has been very effective at initiating and maturing ecosystems that are stable enough for the
ERCs to continue operating after NSF funding sunsets at the end of 10 years. The current success rate for
graduated ERCs is 82%. 7

http://www.topgovernmentgrants.com/grants_gov_display.php?program=DE-FOA-0000356
http://www.digital-ecosystms.org/
6
http://www.erc-assoc.org/
7
James E. Williams, Jr. and Courtland S. Lewis, Post Graduation Status of National Science Foundation Engineering
Research Centers: Report of a Survey of Graduated ERCs, Prepared for the National Science Foundation by SciTech
Communications LLC, January 2010.
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An innovation ecosystem is said to be thriving and healthy when the resources invested in the
knowledge economy (either through private, government, or direct business investment) are
subsequently replenished by innovation induced profit increases in the commercial economy.
At that point, the two economies (knowledge and commercial) exist in balanced equilibrium and
the innovation ecosystem is deemed to be healthy.

(1)

where

is defined as the initial profit before the investments in fundamental research are made,

Figure 1. Virtuous cycle depicting how R&D resource investments are replenished through increased
profits in the commercial economy in a thriving innovation ecosystem.

is defined as profits corrected for investment,

commercial economys research investment in the knowledge economy, and

, is defined as the
is the innovation induced

growth in the economy.

Thus a small amount of profits,

, are sacrificed in order to finance

fundamental research. The result is a feedback loop, known as the virtuous cycle, which is depicted in
Figure 1.
When the innovation induced increase in profits exceeds the initial R&D investment, instead of being
balanced, the innovation ecosystem is said to be growing. Clearly the goal of most of todays government
entities that fund innovation is to put their economies into a growth phase where:
(2)

Innovation spectrum

The challenge to creating a growth situation for an ecosystem is figuring out how to turn the
breakthroughs of R&D efforts into products that lead to profits. Achieving this goal is complicated by the
fact that the two economies operate on different reward systems, thereby making it difficult to link
discoveries derived from fundamental research with innovative products that can translate into profits in
the market place, unless the cycle is internal to a firm.

Another challenge is the scarcity of implementation resources,

, for technology demonstration and

development. In Figure 2, the innovation spectrum shows the distribution of resources invested in
activities

aimed

at

discovery,

technology

demonstration,

technology

development,

and

commercialization. At the far left of the spectrum (i.e. in academia), there is a heavy concentration of
government investment in fundamental research; while to the far right of the spectrum (i.e. in the
commercial marketplace) there is a much higher level of industry investment in direct product
development.

This gap in resources for technology demonstration and development (TD&D) is

colloquially known as the Valley of Death. The actors engaged in moving innovations from discovery
through commercialization are academia, small businesses, the investor community, and commercial
industry.

For these actors, it is within this valley that many potential innovations die for lack of the
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resources to develop them to a stage where industry or the investor community can recognize their
commercial potential and assess the risk associated with bringing them to market.

Resources

Industry, Investors,
and 6.3 Government
Investment

Industry

Government

Investors

Academia

Inventing
Discovery

Small Business
Technology
Demonstration

Commercializing

Development

Commercialization

Level of Development

Figure 2. Innovation Spectrum

One might naively assume that the most efficient way to improve the rate at which technology translates
across the Valley of Death is to substantially increase the TD&D resources.

Though this may

successfully move some innovations into the commercial sphere, it doesnt guarantee that the innovation
ecosystem will thrive as a result. However, when the system is constrained by the requirement that it
must maintain a virtuous cycle, the investment in TD&D further reduces the initial profits in the economy
so that a higher growth in net profit is needed to maintain a virtuous cycle.
(3)

To make things worse, 99.9% TD&D enterprises presented to investors fail8, which means that the
magnitude of the losses from the failed TD&D investments,

, in equation 3 can be significant. So

the best strategy is to limit the losses by judiciously screening the projects selected to receive translational
funding.
The high loss rate can sometimes be mitigated by teaming with professionals experienced in translating
technologies across the gap such as successful entrepreneurs, angel investors, or venture capitalists. But
even with the extensive resources and conservative due diligence practices of venture capitalists, only one
out of every 10 of venture capitalist investments are considered to be commercial successes9. The reason
that venture capitalists cannot guarantee the success of the innovation enterprises they select is because
there are many uncontrollable factors in the market place that cause enterprises to fail.

Common

reasons10 for failure are misjudging the market place, government created roadblocks in approval (FDA,
FCC, FAA, etc.), no market for the product; stronger competition than expected; technologies that do not
work as expected; bad management decisions; bad luck; the required funding outgrowing possible
financial rewards; unexpected government changes to laws or regulations, etc.
Statistically, for every 10 enterprises a venture capitalist invests in, 50% fail outright, 30% are marginal
in that they dont fail, but also dont experience growth, 10% grows at a rate of about twenty percent a
year, and 10% grow significantly faster, providing returns in excess of 1000%. Venture capitalists only
classify an investment enterprise as successful if its return on investment (ROI) exceeds a factor of 10.
The reason venture capitalists require a minimum ten-fold ROI is to insure that they can recover their
investments on the other nine investments that fail. Like the venture capitalists, the innovation ecosystem
must experience enough growth to recover all of the TD&D investments in failed enterprises in order for
the innovation ecosystem to be healthy and thriving.

Jeffry A. Timmons, Andrew Zacharakis, and Stephen Spinelli, Business Plans that Work, McGraw Hill Companies,
2004, p. 17
9
http://ezinearticles.com/?Improve-Venture-Capital-Returns-With-IP-Portfolio-Management&id=1420039
10
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5001285456

This high risk to investors leads to several important conclusions about healthy innovation ecosystems.
First, the increased productivity from success must be profitable enough to compensate for the monetary
investment in both fundamental research and in the failed enterprises. Because there is a high probability
most enterprises launched in the ecosystem will fail, a healthy ecosystem should be structured to handle
failures in a way that encourages cutting investment losses in the early stages of the enterprises, thereby
making it easier to close the loop on the virtuous cycle. Ideally, the ecosystem is also structured to
recover and recycle resources (including human capital) that are released upon failure of an enterprise.
Nurturing the culture of the innovation ecosystem
In the context of nurturing the innovation ecosystems culture, successful enterprises are considered to be
those that are self-sustaining. Given that standard, the above statistics on venture capitalists success rates
suggest that at least 50% of the venture capitalist investments in a technology arena become viable
enough to contribute to the culture of their ecosystem by helping to create jobs, helping to create a
competitive environment, and through participation in the ecosystems ideation and innovation dialogs.
Though difficult to quantify, both types of contributions play important roles in the ecosystems
dynamics.
Besides assembling the actors who will contribute to the innovation ecosystem, a healthy ecosystem also
provides a mechanism for building relationships and other intangibles between the actors, and entities
within the ecosystem. It is the development of trust relationships that helps the deals to go though when
that stage is eventually reached. Besides directly funding individual enterprises, finding intangible ways
to accelerate the passage through the Valley of Death improves the efficiency of the innovation economy,
and makes it easier for it to become self-sustaining.

Common approaches for developing these

intangibles are relationship building activities or one time investments in infrastructure that make the
overall operation more efficient, and thus benefit everyone within the ecosystem. Investing in the

development of these intangibles is wise because it casts a broader net that benefits all efforts to cross the
Valley of Death.
Turning Valley of Death into a Challenge Basin
What are some of the intangible ways of enhancing the chances that technology innovations will
successfully bridge the Valley of Death?

There is no set recipe for developing relationships within an

ecosystem because it depends on the specifics of the technology, the cultures of the ecosystem entities,
and the personalities of the players. The best way to describe how to approach the development of these
relationships is to start by viewing the valley in a metaphorical sense (see Figure 3). In this context, the
intangible relationships of the innovation ecosystem comprise all of the things that one does to the
infrastructure to effectively move the academic side of the valley wall further to the right; or to move the
commercial side of the valley wall further to the left in order to improve the chances of an innovation
venture successfully spanning the Valley of Death. For example, training a cadre of champions whose job
it is to ferry an innovation concept across the valley by championing it until it becomes commercially
viable will effectively move the academic side to the right. Ideally, healthy ecosystems that have made
such a human capital investment will find ways to keep their champions engaged and circulating within
the innovation ecosystem by providing a means of subsistence or incentives for them to stay within the
ecosystem. For example, the marginal and moderate growth enterprises that are considered failures in the
venture capital scenario could serve as habitats for champions between enterprise ventures.

The

designers of healthy innovation ecosystems realize that the experience of failure is just as valuable on the
resumes of champions as the experience of success. Indeed, some might argue that the experience of
failure is more valuable, because it teaches the champions to know when to cut their losses.

Figure 3. The innovation ecosystem consists of the actors, entities, and intangibles. The intangibles are
the complex relationships that effectively move the valley walls inward and the valley floor upward in
order to replace the deep walled valley of death with the gentle slope of a challenge basin.
An effective strategy for moving the commercial side of the valley wall further to the left would be to find
ways of lowering the perceived risk for investors. For example, ecosystems that find ways to translate
knowledge of discoveries developed in the academic community into a context that is relevant to the
industry investors reduce the perceived risk for the investor so that he/she might be inclined to invest in
the technology at an earlier stage. Another approach would be for the academics to find ways to establish
regular brainstorming dialogs with members of the investor communities about nascent technology and it
potential capabilities thereby leveraging the industry and investor communitys first-hand knowledge of
the market sectors and the unfilled needs that a nascent technology might potentially address.
Beyond the intangibles, there are infrastructure investments that are designed to benefit the innovation
ecosystem as a whole which can reduce the negative impact of failures on the virtuous cycle feedback
loop. For example, putting in place rapid prototyping infrastructure is beneficial to the innovation
ecosystem because it (i) lowers the entry costs for start-ups to engage in innovation and (ii) it raises the
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success rate by increasing the number of attempts at translating the Valley of Death. It is the type of
investment that government entities may be more willing to make because it spreads their risk among a
larger number of tries, thereby increasing the chances that they will have invested in an enterprise that
creates jobs. The best examples of this are the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) for integrated
electronics

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and the ERC proof of concept testbeds. The Engineering Research Center for Structured

Organic Particulate Systems (C-SOPS), for example, recently established a continuous tablet
manufacturing prototype testbed facility12,13 for the benefit the pharmaceutical industry.

Other

infrastructure investments might involve finding ways for champions and other actors involved in the
innovation process to reside within the ecosystem between enterprises (e.g. innovation post docs,
professors of practice, etc), thus creating a ready manpower pool which is available for launching
innovation enterprises.

In summary, fundamental research is a necessary ingredient for the development of transformational

innovations that have potential for impacting economic growth. Given that the investment in fundamental
research comes at the expense of profits, a healthy innovation ecosystem is one that closes the feedback
loop between R&D investments through innovations that increase profits in the commercial economy.

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Semiconductor Research Corporationhttp://www.src.org/

http://showcase.erc-assoc.org/accomplishments/2010/2010-CSOPS1-D-pharmaprocess_DL-CLedit.html
13
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0951845
12

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